Ryan Bridge: Is Coster really sorry?

Andrew Coster's three weeks of silence and negotiating speaks volumes about the sincerity of the apology delivered yesterday. 

If you really felt that way, if you hadn't until yesterday realised what had gone on, which he had of course, he saw the report long before any of us did, then surely, you'd have come straight out starting blocks with an apology to Ms Z.

Wouldn't that be a bit more credible? 

As for the Government, they've obviously been trying to get him out without paying him too much. 

The bill is three months paid out. Essentially gardening leave. And, crucially, a statement from the Government that there was no cover-up. 

That's despite the IPCA report having the strong whiff of one, or as Judith Collins put it, the walk, talk, and quack of one. 

Coster's obviously done the calls in his head. The longer you stay on and fight, the messier it gets, reputation-wise. He'll be thinking about the next job, whatever and wherever that may be. 

He strikes me as the sort of guy with a plan to maybe one day get into politics. 

Local cop boss. Top cop boss. New 'modern' approach to policing. A champion of progressive policing. That sort of resume would get you pretty close to the top of a left-leaning party pretty quickly, I would have thought. 

He's not stupid. But this scandal will rule him out of politics and pretty much all top public sector jobs in New Zealand, pretty much for life. 

As the Police Association boss told us yesterday on this programme, front-line officers are being taunted over this. 

Association with that sort of damage doesn't evaporate quickly. And the media culpa, the sorry, wasn't quick enough.

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